Posts Tagged ‘Flopping’

July 24, 2014 · 8:51 AM ET

ALL BALL NERVE CENTER — One thing pro athletes get involved with in their off-season are camps for kids — just recently we saw Damian Lillardthrowing down dunks at his camp in Portland.

Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade hails from Chicago, so he returned home this week to co-sponsor a camp with Chicago Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall. And in a press conference at the camp, Wade shared what happened when he took questions from the campers. And you know, kids say the darndest things…

June 4, 2013 · 11:30 AM ET

––ALL BALL NERVE CENTER — If it wasn’t already, flopping became a meme during this postseason — fans in Indiana even heckled LeBron James with flopping-related chants throughout Game 6. And though the NBA has singled players out and instituted fines, it hasn’t really seemed to curb the players’ enthusiasm for flopping. After all, if the refs are going to call it, maybe it’s worth a flop here or there?

Well, in the second quarter last night, Paul George brought the ball up against Heat guard Mario Chalmers. When George turned his back on Chalmers to protect his dribble, Chalmers went sprawling backward. No call was made, and instead of complaining, George turned and drained the wide-open 3-pointer.

And on his way back down the court, he delivered a message for Chalmers that might have even more efficacy than a fine because of the end result of the exchange: three points for Indiana.

May 31, 2013 · 11:30 AM ET

ALL BALL NERVE CENTER — There has been a lot of chatter this postseason about flopping. Hey, look: Flop all you want, but you might get caught, and if you get caught, there will probably be a fine attached.

As a deterrent, however, the fines don’t seem to have made much of a difference. Especially when we still see things like the vaunted double-flop from guys like LeBron James and David West…

Speaking to the media Thursday, Heat forward Shane Battiertold CBSSports.com that the best way to stop flopping is for the NBA to make sure the fines are lucrative: “If they want to put an opera of all my charges on there or flops or whatever, go for it. You take $10 from me, and I’m upset.”

Taking Battier’s suggestion at his word, The Basketball Jones’ great Trey Kerby put some of Battier’s flops on an opera. Really:

April 25, 2013 · 2:49 PM ET

ALL BALL NERVE CENTER — Much has been made the last few years about flopping. The NBA’s full definition of a flop is here, but, loosely defined, flopping is when a player embellishes his movement in the hopes of influencing a call from a referee.

It is hard to make a blanket statement here, but for the most part, flopping is a bad thing. (It is hard for me to be completely objecting about this topic mostly because flopping was the part of the game I excelled at when I played in high school.) At its core, flopping is designed to trick the officials into giving you an unfair advantage.

The NBA recently announced that those caught flopping during the playoffs will be subject to a series of escalating fines designed to discourage this sort of behavior.

But perhaps the best way to publicly shame the floppers? Videos like the one below from Slate, set to appropriately dramatic music, highlighting the most egregious flops of the 2012-13 NBA season…